Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Sex-crazed bonobos may be more like humans than thought

Bang bang bang!

"'They seem to resolve a lot of their conflicts with sexual behaviour,' he says. 'If two bonobos have a fight, they may make up with a sexual reconciliation, which is typical for their species. So there's a lot of sexual activity that goes on that has more social meaning than reproductive meaning.' Their sexuality also mirrors humans in a couple of other ways, too.

'Bonobos have a greater variety of sexual postures,' he reveals. 'The bonobos can do it any way they want – and they can do it face to face also. So positionally – so to speak – they have a richer repertoire. And their sexual behaviour is not just male to female. It's also female-to-female and male-to-male and male-to-juvenile.' In fact, they make the human sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies look tame." (more)